Monday, May 24, 2010

The Ms. was riding the Orange Line in the other morning when her train died at McPherson Square – most of it in the station, but one car still hanging out into the tunnel: Her car.

Those aboard the in-station cars were allowed off, while those in the tunnel were told to sit tight.

After 20 minutes of sitting around, someone in Metro-land got the bright idea of: What if the people stuck on the dead train got up, walked a few paces through the end-car door, into a car adjacent to the platform, and got out there?!

What a concept!

Brilliant!

Think how elegant a solution could have been crafted if Metro took an hour, or even a day, to cogitate.

It was just one more indication that so much of what ails Metro lies in the brain, and not necessarily the wallet. The Ms. also wonders when, after Metro implements the peak-of-the-peak surcharge, who she should see for a refund when the trip turns into bottom of the barrel.

To top it all off, the final indignity was that she had to pay for the privilege of enduring this Metro misery.

To escape the meltdown, she crossed to the opposite platform, hopped a train one stop back in the opposite direction, to Farragut West, then exited, crossed Farragut Square to Farragut North, to pick up a Shady Grove-bound Red Line train -- her original quest. But, of course, leaving and re-entering meant paying extra fare.

3 comments:

For all we know, the 20 minutes may have been spent trying to get the train mobile again. 20 minutes is not a long time to wait, and as the letter writer even says, "Think how elegant a solution could have been crafted if Metro took an hour..." But they didn't take an hour. They took 20 minutes. Even if they'd decided to open the emergency door right away, you'd still complain because the train was partly in the station.

This is why Metro doesn't worry about complaints. There wasn't ONE person on the stuck car willing to open the unlocked emergency door once they saw that everyone else had been released and that they were being held prisoner by the bureaucracy? Not one.

No torches and pitchforks. These people won't even open unlocked doors.

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